Son of a Servant
by BluCrew
Summary: Steven Universe, son of Greg Universe and Rose Quartz. Steven Pearl Universe, son of his Mother's Knight, Confidant, and Servant. When Pearl makes a choice to save Rose's life, it sets the Crystal Gems on a whole new direction.
1. The Spear

_Hello internet friends and welcome to the fic that's way better than the one I was going to post last month. So a little backstory on this one, I'd like to give shoutouts to Kiranwearsscienceblues for the genesis of this idea. Basically, an AU where Pearl convinces Rose to fuse into Rainbow Quartz, so Steven can inherit her Gem instead. And me, being a nutter butter, decided that this was a great idea for a fic._

_Now personally I always like to start with something a little more normal, so expect to see a lot of parallels to Gem Glow here. It helps me get to know the cast, and I think it helps the reader to ease into some of the more radical AUs like this. Don't worry, the twists they are a-comin'._

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Oh yeah, and I guess this is where I plug my tumblr as well. Over at never knew Pearl. There was no doubt about that. Pearl was as good as dead, in human terms. But Pearl was neither Human, nor was her demise so simple. Steven knew that, of course, even had his mother not continually reminded him, the picture hung conspicuously over the door of their beachfront home made sure he wouldn't forget.

The same could be said of the gemstone embedded in his forehead. A constant reminder that Pearl was gone. Smooth, egg shaped, nestled like a third eye in the center of his forehead. It was a Pearl, it was Pearl's Pearl. You see Pearl, Steven's mother and Steven by extension, wasn't human. Rather, they were Gems, or in Steven's case half-gem, intelligent gemstones projecting a light-based body.

Pearl gave up her Gemstone, though, she gave it up so Steven could be born. Born to a Gem Mother, Rose Quartz, and a Human Father, Greg Universe. And so Pearl was gone, and Steven would never meet the Gem his mother always talked so glowingly about.

He knew Pearl was one of the Crystal Gems, the group of Gems that protect humanity from monsters. Steven's mother was their leader, and their base was just up the hill from the beach house Steven lived in. A cliffside statue of a giant woman, six armed, two faced, with a single room cut into her navel containing what Steven's mother called a warp pad, which the Gems use to travel all over the world, and a single door leading to each Crystal Gem's room. Pearl apparently had one, one that would eventually be Steven's, but until that time he lived in a beach house, like any other human.

It was designed so Steven and Greg could live near the Crystal Gems, lifted off the ground on stilts to protect it from potential flooding disasters. Inside there were three rooms, a large front room featuring an included Kitchen, a large couch for Steven, Greg, and the Gems as well. A bathroom was tucked off to the side, with a room lofted above it for Steven's bed. In the back was a smaller bedroom, meant to be used by Greg and Rose. But Gems didn't need sleep, and Greg preferred to just sleep in his Van, so Steven spent most of his nights alone.

This was one of those nights, as he sat on the deck outside the beach house, just looking up at the night sky. Something about it always made him feel better, the infinite expanse of stars above him, all the places they could be…. The places they are. He idly ran a hand through his hair, brown like his father's, but curled up in the back and parted around his gem in the front. Pearl's hair had always pulled back to a point, but for whatever reason Steven's was similar but not the same.

It wasn't the only way he was merely similar to Pearl, too. Where Pearl was tall and thin as a rail, Steven as shorter and a bit stocky. Not quite a square profile, maybe more of a rectangle. And he barely seemed to age since he was a kid. Here he was, a middle school kid that looked like he could pass for an elementary schooler. His clothes were a handed-down shirt from his father, and a pair of shorts, a far cry from the aquas and lavenders Pearl wore. Perhaps the only trait he truly shared with Pearl was the light blue color of his eyes. He couldn't even use her Gem like she could.

"My gem..." he muttered to himself, as he ran a hand over the elliptical pearl, "I wonder when I'll finally get it to work."

His idle thoughts were broken by a voice yelling from the Temple above, "Steven get inside!" It was Rose, and she sounded absolutely frantic.

"Mom!?" he called back, hearing the sound of distant sound, like screeching, coming from down the beach.

Suddenly something whizzed just past Steven's ear. A pink shield, looking like it was made of energy, emblazoned with a rose design. His Mother's weapon. Steven barely got the chance to notice it before it impacted something behind him, triggering a shock wave that almost knocked him over.

Scrambling to his feet, Steven saw what had made Rose so concerned, a tiny wingless bat. It was pitch black, nearly invisible against the night had it not been for the notably white, crystalline fang near dead center on its little body. Some kind of Monster, Steven realized as he saw more of them flying down the coastline from the city.

Steven turned back to the Temple to see Rose already rushing down to the beach, Garnet and Amethyst behind her. "Steven!" she yelled again to him, much less concerned and much more firmly. It was an order now, and that only made part of Steven want to intervene.

"No, I can help you guys!" Steven yelled back as he sprinted down the stairs from the deck to the beach. Rose simply was silent, what could she even say to that that wouldn't completely crush Steven's confidence? Sure Steven couldn't control his Gem, sure him being out here was putting him in danger, but Rose couldn't admit that in front of Steven.

But the bats didn't care about confidence, or if the child ahead of them knew how to use his Gem or not. No the bats knew only attacking Gems. And they used the only attack they really had, they could screech, and their screeches were like a destructive shock wave.

"Rose! The bats!" Garnet called out as she raised her gauntlet-clad fists in front of her, launching her gauntlets like a pair of rockets. One sent to intercept the shock wave headed for Steven, the other smashing into the side of the leading monster, a bat according to Garnet, and exploding with enough force to poof the small bat instantly.

Rose seemed stunned for a moment after Garnet's intervention, before rushing over to Steven. "You two take care of the bats, I'll protect Steven," she finally ordered, summoning a pair of shields this time.

"Alright! I can handle these," Amethyst smugly said, using her whip to strike wildly toward the oncoming bats. Garnet said nothing, racing past Amethyst's wild whipping and summoning another set of gauntlets.

Two bats were caught up fighting Garnet and Amethyst, only one slipping past them to pursue Rose and Steven. "Steven, I want you staying behind me" Rose commanded Steven first, before softening and asking, "Okay?" Steven nodded, hunkering in close and hugging Rose's leg as she put one shield in front of her to block any incoming sonic bursts, and prepared to throw the other.

Rose stood tall, waiting for her enemy to attack first. And it wasn't a long wait, the little bat used its sonic blast attack, impacting Rose's shield. She didn't move an inch from the attack, and immediately threw her second shield with extreme accuracy, cutting it right in the middle and poofing it.

"Hey you guys?" Steven heard Amethyst calling out after Rose's attack, peeking around Rose's shield to see the small purple gem wrap another bat in her whip and smash it into the sand, "These things don't have Gems!"

"Then the real monster must be somewhere nearby," Garnet calmly replied, grasping the last bat in her two gauntlets. With a swift tug she poofed the bat, turning her head toward the sand below, "Nothing."

Rose sighed, looking between Garnet and Amethyst. "Well, then we need to find it, let's split up and-"

"Oh I can help! I'll go check in town and see if anyone's seen anything!" Steven cut her off, rushing to join Amethyst and Garnet had Rose not put an arm out to stop him.

"No Steven, you need to get some sleep. We can handle finding one monster."

"But I'm not even tired. Come on, I can help you guys," Steven tried to argue, punctuating it with an inadvertent yawn that only served to make Rose stare harder down at him. "Steven..." she reiterated, before her stare softened, "Alright, I'll stay with you for now. Garnet, Amethyst, you both can handle locating the monster on your own, right?"

"Just us? Looking for a monster we know nothing about?" Amethyst tried to complain, but Garnet had already started walking toward town. And Steven could swear she was scowling as she did so. "Garnet!" She tried calling after the retreating taller Gem, but to no avail, "Fine. But don't stay gone all night Rose. We're going to need your help."

"I won't, Amethyst."

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Rose ended up leaving after Steven had finally gone to sleep. It was easy to guess, since he ended up waking up alone again, and he knew Gems didn't need sleep.

His mind was elsewhere than Rose's departure, though, still thinking about the night before. The Crystal Gems were out there hunting a monster, and he wasn't able to help. And he knew why; it wasn't because he had to sleep like any human, it was because he couldn't use his gem. Rose never admitted it, she was his mother after all, but he'd heard it from Amethyst before.

"You know Rose isn't going to take you with us until you can at least summon a weapon, right?"

It wasn't that Steven wasn't trying. He'd heard all the stories about all the things Pearl could do; all the things he couldn't do. He even knew the petal story by heart, but still he couldn't do something as simple as make his gem glow.

Steven's internal angsting was interrupted, however, by a commotion coming from the beach outside. Thinking the Gems had located the monster, Steven rushed out to the deck and looked up and down the beach. There was no monster, though, only Amethyst and a flock of Gulls.

"Go! Get out of here! We're hunting Gems, not Birds!" she was yelling, waving her arms to little avail as the birds merely flocked further up the shoreline. "Amethyst!" Steven called out, waving his arms as well as he raced down the stairs to join her on the beach.

"Steven! You're awake!" Amethyst stopped yelling at the Gulls to yell at Steven instead. "So how did your monster hunt go last night? Did Mom help you find it?" Steven wasted no time in asking once he'd gotten to Amethyst.

"How did it go? We're still looking for it. Rose didn't even join us until this morning."

This morning? Steven had to guess that Amethyst simply wasn't being honest with him. She probably just wanted to keep Steven from feeling like a bigger burden, keeping Rose away from hunting monsters, it wasn't Amethyst's fault Steven had already guessed what was likely the truth.

"You really couldn't find it?" Steven asked instead, trying to move the discussion quickly away from Amethyst's lie.

"Nope!" she replied, shrugging her arms as a Gull started pecking around her feet, "Garnet still says it has to be around here but I think it bailed after we took care of the little bats."

"Well what if it only come out at night? Like a real bat?"

"Steven, these are Gems we're talking about, they don't sleep during the day or anything," Amethyst tried giving her best lecture like Garnet or Rose would have, but the effect was lost when the Gull pecking around ended up pecking at her feet.

"Grrrgh!" she growled, drawing her whip out of her Gem without a second thought, "I said get away you stupid birds!" She was about to start swinging her whip at the Gulls when Steven interrupted her, "Wow Amethyst, how do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"That whip thing. How do you summon it? I keep trying Pearl's petal thing but it just never works." Steven actually wanted to know how how other Gems summoned their weapons, not just Pearl, though getting Amethyst to not attack birds was a nice bonus.

"Tch, the petal thing? Steven, what you need to know is all that practice stuff is junk. Whenever you need your weapon, it'll just be there. Like mine!" Amethyst summoned another whip for emphasis, snapping both in the direction of the Gulls, who finally all scattered into the air in a mass of feathers.

"But my weapon wasn't there last night. All I could do is hide behind Mom." Steven just kicked at the sand, thinking back to how he'd just gotten in the way by making Rose have to protect him instead of fight.

"Well maybe the problem is you-"

"Amethyst!" the distant, yet still surprisingly clear, voice of Garnet yelled down to them. Both the half-gem and full-gem looking up to the cliff overlooking the Crystal Temple to see Garnet there, staring down at them.

Amethyst reacted immediately to the sight, her two whips vanishing as she dug around in a pocket. "Uh oh, I need to get back to hunting. Hey Steven, how about you head into town and get some snacks for after we take care of this, huh?"

She pulled a fist out of her pocket, a couple of $3 bills and holding them out for Steven. He grabbed the money, not wanting Amethyst to get in any more trouble by holding her up. And as she ran down the beach, Steven trudged the other way toward the Big Donut.

The Big Donut, as it's name might imply, was a store that sold donuts. In truth it was more of a donut-themed convenience store, despite the proud claims that "We only sell donuts." Built on the edge of Beach City, where the City, the Boardwalk, and the Beach met, the little shop was advertised with…. A big donut on the roof. It used to serve as a neon sign, but the Crystal Gems had destroyed the old sign some years ago fighting a monster.

Inside worked Lars and Sadie, stocking and watching the register respectively, while Steven rushed to his favorite cat-promotional freezer. "Hey Steven, busy day?" Sadie asked. "Nah, all the Gems are off doing Gem stuff, so I got sent for snacks," Steven explained, blindly reaching around the freezer once, twice, then a third time before looking away from Sadie to discover the freezer was empty for the first time in forever.

"Nooooooooooooo!" Steven cried out with a force that could shake the windows on the shop, falling down to his knees before the freezer, "This can't be happening! Where are the Cookie Cats!?"

"I'm sorry, Steven. I guess they stopped making them," Sadie tried to let him down gently, to little avail as Steven simply got up and pressed his cheek against the freezer.

"Stopped making them? Why would they stop making Cookie Cats? Don't they have laws against this!?"

"Tough bits, man," Lars piped up, kneeling and stocking another freezer on the other side of the little store. This one much larger and decorated with a cartoonish lion head, "Nobody was buying them. I guess they just couldn't compete with Lion Lickers."

Steven suddenly let go of the Cookie Cat freezer and ran over to the Lion Licker one, almost stepping on Lars, "Lion Lickers!? Nobody likes them! They don't even look like lions! Kids these days!"

"Watch it, Steven. I'm stocking here," Lars waved his arm to get Steven to get away from the Lion Lickers' freezer, "If you want your wimpy ice cream so much, why don't you just make more with your magic Gem powers?"

"That's not how it works, Lars!" Steven shot back. He'd actually asked Rose about it before, when Lars had commented on magic Gem powers before, and she told him Gems can't just... create ice cream sandwiches. So instead he just trudged back to the Cookie Cat freezer, resting his head against it dejectedly, "Goodbye sweet Cookie Cats, your crunchy cookie outside and your icy creamy insides were too good for this world."

And then he kissed the freezer.

Now kissing freezers is weird and unsanitary enough as it is. But given what happened the last time Steven started kissing Big Donut property, the staff, all two of them, decided to just let Steven take the freezer with him.

And so Steven skipped home, a Cat-themed freezer strapped onto his back by the power cord, like a weird backpack. Once he got the freezer inside and unstrapped from his back, he heard a sound coming from Greg and Rose's room. A rustling and a thumping sort of sound, like something was trapped inside.

Cautiously he walked from the kitchen to the doorway. Grabbing a broom for protection. But before he could open the door, it opened on its own, light flooding the bedroom to reveal the source of the noise.

"Garnet!?" Steven called out, almost falling over the broom he had brought with him as the same Gem that had scared off Amethyst earlier was now looking through Steven's house.

"You weren't supposed to be back yet," Garnet said flatly, walking past him toward the front door, "I wanted to check the beach house for our monster."

"Wait, Garnet!" Steven called out, getting Garnet to stop just at the entrance. "Yes, Steven?"

"Um…. About last night. Do you…. Dislike me?"

Garnet listened to Steven for a moment, tilting her head, "Dislike you?"

"Yeah. Last night when Mom decided to stay with me instead of going to help you. It looked like you were mad," Steven explained, recalling Garnet's seeming scowl the night before, and then her... strange behavior today. "I don't dislike you, Steven," Garnet explained after a brief pause, when Steven could almost feel her gaze on him despite the visor she always wore, "I may have my disagreements with... your Mother, but I don't dislike you."

"Then can I ask you something else?" Steven waited for a response, but getting nothing and Garnet not leaving, he decided to just continue, "Mom keeps telling me about how Pearl studied petals to learn how to summon her weapon, but Amethyst says I should do the complete opposite and just do nothing. Do you just…. Do nothing to summon your Gauntlets?"

"No. I just link my mind with the energy of all existing matter. Channeling the collective power of the whole universe through my gem," Garnet explained, her voice sounding more and more mystical as she explained, before suddenly snapping back to her usual cold self, "At least that's my way of doing it."

Steven just stared blankly for a moment at her sudden change, "So I'm supposed to both do nothing and do everything?"

"In a word, yes." And the house fell silent for an extended pause. Unlike usually when Garnet was silent, Steven didn't feel like she was constantly watching. It was like Garnet was asleep, except Gems didn't sleep. Finally after seconds that felt like minutes, Garnet spoke again, "I need to leave. Maybe you should try asking Rose about her weapon."

Steven didn't get another word in edge-wise before Garnet had left, leaving him alone once again with his Cookie Cat freezer. "Ask Mom?" he asked himself as he hefted the freezer up onto the counter of the little kitchen, "I guess I haven't really asked her about how she summons a shield. Not that it'd make a difference."

Deciding the freezer needed something to freeze, Steven went to the much larger, much more proper looking, refrigerator and started looking for any frozen food. Some hot dogs, some ice cream, some Cookie Cats.

"Cookie Cats!?" Steven exclaimed, not hearing the door open again, "No way, they-"

"Stopped making them?" the voice of Steven's mother, Rose Quartz, asked from behind him, "I heard that too, and since they're your favorite I had to buy everything the Big Donut had left."

"Mom!" Steven dropped what he was doing to give Rose a hug, "I can't believe you did this for me!" Then he paused, "Wait, what about the Monster?"

Rose rubbed her voluminous curls and glanced away from Steven, "Oh that? I have Garnet and Amethyst looking for it. Garnet said that Amethyst had told you already."

"They did, but shouldn't you be out there helping them? You're their leader, you don't need to do all this for me," Steven tried to explain again, Garnet and Amethyst's respective stories about Rose coming to mind.

Rose moved closer to Steven, closing the freezer door and pulling the half-gem into a hug, "I will, first I wanted to make sure you were okay after last night. Steven that was very reckless, you can't try fighting monsters until you can use your Gem."

Steven chaffed under the admonishment, looking up at Rose, then down at the floor, "I'm trying…. The petal dance, the hard work, I even tried asking Amethyst and Garnet how they use their gems. Garnet even said I should ask how you summon your shield."

Rose went quiet, Steven could even feel her tense slightly, "Steven… do you really need to know about how other Gems use their weapons?"

"Amethyst and Garnet told me," Steven responded, giving a hug back to Rose, "Who knows, maybe it'll help?"

"Well let's sit down first." Rose walked with Steven to the large L-shaped couch, nestled just below Steven's bed-loft, "Steven, I never knew how to even summon a weapon until I formed the Crystal Gems. I never had a reason to. But now it's effortless for me to summon one, two, or more. Do you know what changed? I found something worth fighting for, worth protecting."

"Mom..." Steven muttered, before the house windows shook from a distant screech. Rose must have known exactly what was going on, since she shot upright before putting an arm out to stop Steven from doing the same. "Steven, this time I'm serious. Stay inside," she stressed, before racing out the door.

Steven wasn't going to intentionally put himself in danger, but he did rush to the front window to try and catch a glimpse of what was happening. He saw the Crystal Gems gathered on the beach, near one of the giant stone hands that had fallen off the cliffside statue the Crystal Temple was built into. He could just barely see down the beach the black bloby outline of a much larger bat creature. It's body was a dark gray, with a black, square-cut, curved-corner Gem on its… stomach. Unlike the smaller, more hand held bats the night before, this one was easily as tall as Amethyst, and had crystalline eyes to go with its two crystalline fangs.

And it was leisurely flying toward the Temple. Perhaps it hadn't seen the Crystal Gems yet, perhaps it didn't care. "Gems, weapons!" Steven could hear Rose yell outside, as the three Crystal Gems all summoned their weapons and charged down the beach toward the Bat. Then the windows shook again, accompanied by the screech, loud enough that Steven ducked to the floor fearing the window was going to shatter.

Steven peeked up through the window again, immediately seeing the Gems had fallen back down the Beach, the Bat now quickly advancing on them, and a big sand crater between the two groups. He ducked again, though, as the Bat Monster screeched again, louder still, shaking the entire building this time as something crashed outside.

When Steven poked his head up again, he saw the hand on the beach was gone. Rocks that once belong to it strewn all over the beach, one having even landed on the stairs up to the beach house. The Gems were nowhere to be found though.

"Oh no, oh no," Steven muttered to himself as he scanned the window's view of the beach up and down, seeing no Gems, only the bat monster. His scanning shortly turned into pacing, which turned into rushing back to the window and scanning the beach. He knew he had to do something, but what could he even do? He couldn't even summon a weapon!

But he had to do something, so he once again grabbed the broom he'd left by the back room, and ran out the door.

Outside he could see the full scene, the Bat was bearing down on a chunk of rock that had dislodged from the cliff before Steven was even born, and Steven had to guess that was where the Crystal Gems had hidden themselves.

"Everyone!" Steven yelled as he jumped his way down the stairs, winding up his broom-holding arm.

"Steven, no!" he could hear Rose cry from her hiding spot, but the damage was already done, the monster had turned its attention toward Steven. "Leave them alone!" he cried out as he tossed the broom with good speed and accuracy. Though the monster ultimately caught the broom in its mouth, snapping it in half with a single bite.

"Steven!" Rose cried out again, as the monster flew up high to attack. Steven threw his arms up as if it would somehow protect him, but the sonic burst never arrived. Instead Steven opened his eyes to see something glowing in front of him.

"Steven..." Rose yelled a third time now, this time in awe, "Your Gem!"

It was true, the glow in Steven's eyes was coming from just above them, from the Pearl nestled on his forehead. "W-what do I do now!? It's never done this!" He cried out, waving his arms as the monster got its bearings back from the sudden light.

"Your weapon!" he heard Garnet calling from the rock as well. "Yeah! Come on Steven!" Amethyst added in as well.

Steven moved on something close to instinct. Grasping at the glow, pulling out, and flourishing down. "Woah," he muttered as he took stock of the light-based weapon in his hand. A glowing off-cyan blade, wrapped around a similarly glowing shaft, connected to a grip of stark white, with a little half-star attached to its end.

"Her spear…." Steven could just make out one of the Crystal Gems uttering, he was too busy staring down the monster. "I said leave them alone!" Steven yelled, winding up and tossing the spear this time toward the monster's opened jaw.

And Gem Weapons don't break like Brooms do.

So the spear pierced the monster's mouth, it screeching loudly and in pain, sending small pebbles tumbling down the cliffside before it finally poofed in a cloud of black smoke. The curved-corner gem falling into the sand with a soft tink.

"Steven you did it!" Rose ran from the rock, calling out to Steven as she grabbed him in a hug, Amethyst in tow behind her.

"I knew he could do it all along," Amethyst tried bragging, "It was easy, wasn't it?"

Garnet didn't come to congratulate Steven, instead bubbling the bat's Gem, and sending it away to… wherever Gems get stored. Only then did she come over and give Steven a simple pat on the head. He frowned, he didn't like the head pats.

"I guess it turns out all I needed to summon my Gem was deadly peril, huh?" Steven asked, entirely seriously. Though Rose didn't take it with the pride he expected.

"You're still in deep trouble for not staying inside like I told you, Steven."

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_Congratulations you read through that beast. 9 pages, 4.5k words, that's the 2nd most I've ever written for a single chapter of a fic. And hoo boy did it show, that was about a month's work of work. Honestly I kinda wrote all that out in smaller chunks, then when I went through and did editing I realized I kinda wrote this interesting mystery woven through about just what Rose was doing the whole time. If you can't tell already, Rose is going to be something of a conflict in this._

_(PS please be gentle it's literally the first chapter of many.)_

_Anyway since I'm 12 hours late on posting this I'll just get right into this._

_Next time, when the Gems leave Steven behind on another adventure, he and Greg end up having an adventure of their own._


	2. It's Not A Game

Steven had received his punishment after disobeying Rose, learning how to summon his spear for the first time or not. And that was why he was laying on the couch, tossing crumpled up paper balls and seeing if he could hit the Cookie Cat freezer with them.

You see, his punishment was that he still wasn't able to go with the Crystal Gems on one of their big important missions. They'd left earlier in the day, it was something about a Red Eye, which Steven assumed was some sort of monster like the bat was.

There weren't any actual restrictions on what Steven could do, thankfully. But that didn't change the fact there wasn't anything to do without the Gems. He could go into town, maybe get some fry bits from Beach Citywalk Fries, or visit with his Dad at the car wash.

Thankfully for Steven, he wouldn't need to lay around waiting to make a decision. He heard the distant sound of an engine rolling up the beach. And given there was no road, and mail was a rarity, there was only one person that could be coming.

"Dad!" Steven called out, having sprinted from the couch to the outside deck and then down to the beach below. "Steven!" he called back, looking first to the beach house, then up at the Temple, "Where's Rose?"

"Gem stuff," was all Steven had to say. Greg knew well enough the kinds of adventures the Crystal Gems could get wrapped up in. Magic stuff, stuff he'd been told to stay out of.

"Gem stuff, huh? I guess that's why she wanted me to open the storage unit for her."

Steven gasped long and loud, "You have a storage unit?" Greg just laughed lightly at the question, "It's nothing special. It's just a shed I use to keep old things that wouldn't fit in the van. Though Rose left it a mess after she was done with it. Hey Schtu-ball, how would you like to help me get everything back inside?"

Steven's eyes lit up like stars, the solution to his boredom, "Can I!?"

"Sure! Hop in, I'll get us there," Greg slapped the side of his branded van, setting off its alarm.

* * *

Greg wasn't wrong about the storage unit being a mess. Rose had left random boxes piled all the way to the roadside, and yet the storage unit didn't look that much emptier. The piles inside still reached almost up to the ceiling, with only a small hole stretching all the way to the back of the unit.

"Wow Dad, how did you get all of this… stuff?" Steven asked, kicking an inflatable beach ball into the hole.

"You pick up a lot of stuff when you're traveling all over performing, like this t-shirt cannon," Greg replied, picking up the cannon and firing it into the unit, causing something to crash inside of it. "Uh oh..."

"Maybe I should go see what that was." Steven was already on his hands and knees, looking through the hole in the pile of stuff. He was about to crawl in, too, when he felt Greg grab his shoulder, "Hold on Schtu-ball, we can't have you getting lost in there. Rose would never forgive me if you did."

Steven pouted, getting up off the ground and taking a look around. A sock, a pile of multicolored handkerchiefs, a spool of twine. "Wait, that's it!" he declared, grabbing the twine and wrapping it around his leg, "This way I can just follow the string back! That should work, right?"

"I-I guess?" Greg gave the twine a bit of a tug, "It's not coming off at least."

Satisfied with the vague approval, Steven got back down on his hands and knees, crawling into the hole as Greg held onto the other end of the twine. Inside was a lot darker, and seemed to stretch back a lot farther than it looked like from outside. He crawled past condensed piles of tables and boxes, old televisions and even an entire desk. Finally he emerged into a tunnel he could stand in, the path branching left and right in front of him.

Deciding to go left, Steven set off through the coincidentally-carved paths of the storage unit. It didn't take him long to find the end of the path, though. A wall of clutter, with a set of golf clubs sticking out like a series of nails.

"Hey Dad?" Steven called out, eager for conversation as he retraced his steps back to the junction, "Did you ever play golf?"

"Heh heh, found the clubs? Your Mother got those for me after you were born… I think it was a Father's Day gift. I do like to think of myself as someone who would golf, though."

Steven was glad he was inside after hearing that, as much as Greg probably was glad he was outside after saying it. It was such a ridiculous answer Steven couldn't help but shake his head, "Well why doesn't she give you anything now?"

"She doesn't want anything else being thrown in here, and besides, you're old enough to get your old man presents now."

Well, his Mother wasn't wrong about not needing anything else in storage at least. Steven had set off down the right path now, climbing over boxes labeled everything from "convenient pillows" to "fragile china," and almost tripping over an unlabeled box. Getting his feet back under him, Steven turned around to take a look inside the mystery box.

Inside was stacks and stacks of CDs, all labeled with the same Mr. Universe branding as Greg's van. "Hey Dad! I found a bunch of your old CDs in here!" Steven called back to Greg again, hoping to start a conversation up again while he kept traveling deeper into the storage unit that was starting to feel like two storage units put together.

"Huh. I thought I got rid of those back in the day. Oh, that's right, I couldn't even give those things away! You know I think the only one I gave away was when I came here to Beach City for a concert. Nobody even showed up except for your Mother."

"Just Mom, seriously?" Steven asked, pocketing a CD for later, "Come on, at least the other Gems showed up, right?"

"Nope, just your Mother. The rest of the Crystal Gems didn't take too kindly to me at first. But your Mother and I were inseparable from that day until the day you were born."

Steven wasn't sure if he wanted to ask the followup to that, but it would make is trek a little more interesting, so he called back once more. "And what happened then?"

"Well after… Pearl gave up her form for you, Rose and the other Gems had to pick up the slack. So I started the car wash to be able to afford your clothes, your food, your… well, everything. So we don't really see each other as much now."

It wasn't that he hadn't heard the story before. He'd lived it already for his entire life. So, not knowing what to say, he just kept on walking until he heard his Dad again, "Steven? You still in there?"

"Yeah," he replied, "I just didn't know what to say." The boxes had given way now to various tall decorations. An inflated Palm Tree, a floor lamp, Steven figured he had to be getting close.

"It's no problem, I know it's kind of… Weird. Though, if every porkchop were perfect, we wouldn't have hot dogs!"

Steven was going to laugh, but stopped himself when he almost tripped over a shirt. "Buy T-shirt Cannons?" he read off the shirt as he picked it up. Just ahead of him was a tall totem pole, knocked over and resting on a box labeled "GGS."

"Hey Dad, I think I found it! A… totem pole fell onto some box. Hey, do you know what a GGS is?" he called back, tugging lightly on the twine this time as well.

"GGS?" he heard Greg calling back, "Oh! That must be my old Grintendo! Hey Steven, do you think you can bring that out here?"

Steven gave the box a tentative grab. It was awkward, wide and large, but it didn't seem heavy. So Steven called back, "Yeah I think so!"

And so Steven started his trek back out. Carefully climbing over boxes and only almost breaking a photo of his parents along the way. Once outside, he set the box down on the ground and stepped back, letting his Dad do the honors of opening.

Opening the box, both men were hit with the smell of dust. Dust and old plastic. Inside was a pile of gray cartridges surrounding a gray console. It was roughly squared, with a slot in the top for cartridges, an oval-shaped switch and button, and a square cover over… something.

"There it is. I used to play on this all the time when Rose and I were still dating," Greg then started digging through the contents, "The Perils of Pweepwee, Skateboard Kids, G.U.Y.S. Arena, Fargo Park…. Er, we can talk about that one when you're older. Oh! Here it is, my old copy of Mighty Lewis Bros. This one was always Rose's favorite."

"Mom liked Video Games, seriously?" Steven asked, looking over the Mighty Lewis Bros cartridge. The sticker depicted a tanned, heavier-set, bearded man wearing a hard hat. He was leaping, apparently up a tower, toward a scaly, green, skinny lizard man wearing a crown and a cape. The lizard king was raising an arm in the air, an arm that ended not in a hand, but in some kind of pirate-like pickaxe.

"Not really, but she did like watching me play that one. The Crystal Gems didn't care for it, though. They said it was distracting Rose from her work. Hey I know, would you like this old thing, Steven?"

Steven's eyes lit up like stars as he dumped the cartridge back in the box, "Really? I can just have it?" Greg just laughed and closed the box up again, "Sure! It's not doing anything stuffed in the back of U-Store, is it? But first let's get the rest of this stuff put away."

Getting everything else into the storage building was easy. Between Steven and Greg they were easily able to shove most of it straight in. By the time the sun was starting its descent in the sky, the mess had been cleaned up and all that was left roadside was a van, a single box, and a father and son. "There, that wasn't so hard," Greg remarked, picking up the Grintendo box and stowing it in his van, "Now let's get back before Rose does."

"Sure! And I grabbed a CD for us to listen to on the way!"

* * *

Greg wasn't that excited to be listening to one of his own CDs on the way back to the beach house, nor was Steven's borderline-vibration helpful. But they made it all the same, and the Crystal Gems were still away on their mission!

Hurrying inside with the box, Greg was quickly able to get the old GGS hooked up to the old television in Steven's loft, "Alright, that should do it. Go grab one of those games will you, Schtu-ball?"

Steven nodded, running down to where the box had been left and looking inside. Immediately he noticed the Mighty Lewis Bros game again, since it now sat alone in the empty space the GGS once occupied. Not knowing what games would be good, he just decided to grab that. "Got one!" He called out as he ran up the stairs to his loft.

"Lewis Bros again, Schtu-ball? Well let's see if this old thing still works," Greg said, taking the game and inserting it into the top of the system before powering it up.

And nothing happened.

"Uhh, don't worry this happens sometimes," Greg laughed a bit as he tried turning it on again. Still nothing. Then he took the game out and blew on it, something Steven would later learn not to do. Inserting the game again, it finally powered on, "So Steven, do you want to give it a try?"

"Nah, you try it. It's your game after all," Steven replied, flopping on his bed and watching the TV, he didn't really get that much time with Greg anyway, so any excuse to keep him here was a good one.

"Well alright then, but pay attention, okay?" Greg grabbed the controller off the floor and started playing. Showing Steven the skills of the game; jumping, enemies, and most importantly…

"Now this is a castle, Steven," Greg explained, "It's the end of the world, so make sure you pay attention. Back in the day these were a real challenge, it was like... a final exam in school."

Steven didn't go to school, but he'd heard from Lars and Sadie about the dreaded finals. If this was the same thing, it must be hard.

"See these barrels? First you need to jump over them, but once you get to those blocks there they're going to start bouncing down at you from above. So now you need to have learned their timing so you can get to the spots where they'll bounce over you," Greg demonstrated, jumping over three barrels before stopping against a block, letting a barrel go over him, and jumping up the block, and repeating the process.

Steven watched intently, tapping his finger inadvertently to the beat until the beat had stopped. Greg's character was now facing a river of lava, with barrels somehow floating down the lava. Greg didn't explain this part, merely jumping toward the lava and landing safely on a barrel.

"See Schtu-ball? Now you need to jump on the barrels to progress. Pretty tricky, huh?" He seemed like he was forcing the coolness a bit, but Steven did have to admit this was more depth than any game he'd seen at the Arcade in town.

"And only after all of that do you finally get to the boss, King-"

Greg's explanation was interrupted by the high-pitched buzz of a game that had stopped working, however. "-Well that's not supposed to happen. I guess this old thing isn't quite in working condition after all."

He got up and turned the GGS off and on again, this time nothing happened. "Maybe it's broken," Steven piped up with, "It was in your U-Store all that time. And that pole did fall on it."

"There's no way it's broken, these old systems were built to last. Not even Amethyst could break it." While Steven was left to wonder how Amethyst had tried to break the system, Greg picked it up and gave it a tentative shake while talking, "Hmm, maybe something is loose in there. Let me check quick."

And so Greg put the system down, opening the little hatch on the top and releasing a flooding light into the house. A light accompanied by an intense rumbling.

"What was that?" Greg asked, rubbing his eyes from staring directly at the light's source, "Hey Schtu-ball could you see if that was Rose?"

Steven ran to the front window, looking out at the beach for any sign of the Gems. He didn't see it, though, but he did find something else. "Uh… Dad, you may want to see this..."

"What is it Schtu-ball?" Greg made his way over to the window and looked out as well, only managing an "Oh no" at what he was seeing.

Outside was a massive castle made of sand. It featured an abundance of same-style openings, passing for windows, and also spikes. Giant sand spikes around it's top edges and in periodic bands down its towers. The Castle seemed to float just above the ocean, the sand likely pulled from the ocean floor.

"Steven," Greg continued after the pause, "I think we need to get Rose. That's not just any sand castle. That's the castle from the game… that's King Kroc's castle."

Steven thought back to the art on the game's cartridge, and the boss that Greg was about to fight, and the light. "Wait Dad!" He called to Greg, who was already running toward the back bedroom, "If this is some kind of Gem Monster then we can take care of it ourselves before Mom even gets back!"

"Ourselves? Steven, I know you saved the Gems once but this seems more intense than just fighting a giant bat."

"But we can handle it, Dad! I'm a Crystal Gem, I can fight whatever's in there, and you know all about how to play the game. Together we can take that Castle down before Mom even gets back," Steven practically begged, already formulating a plan of attack. It wasn't for sure a Gem Thing, but castles don't just form out of nowhere for any other reason.

Greg seemed unconvinced though, "Steven I'm not going to let you go out there and get hurt. I'm going to get Rose."

Steven wasn't hearing the objections, though. He was gone like a flash, running out of the house and down toward the castle. Heedless of the danger, confident in his skills.

"Huh? Wait, Steven!" Greg yelled, running after Steven upon hearing the door shut, "Steven if anything happens in there you run back here!"

"Don't worry, Dad! I'll clear this castle without continues!"

* * *

For being made of sand, the interior of the castle looked very detailed. The walls looked to be made of sandy bricks, and the floor did too. Except for a strip of flat sand, Steven guessed it was there to lead him along. And so he decided to follow along.

"This isn't so hard, and Dad was going to call for Mom," Steven joked to himself. He was a little nervous, of course, well maybe a lot nervous, and it wasn't helped by the thumping noise he kept hearing just ahead. A low rhythmic rumble, then a loud bang, and then it repeats, "Almost like..." Steven muttered to himself before rounding a corner and quickly stopping.

The answer was barrels.

Barrels were one by one rolling down the hallway, bouncing down blocky stairs, and ultimately crashing into a wall. Crumpling into sand that was absorbed back into the castle itself.

Steven remembered this part from watching his Dad play the game. Or, something close to this anyway. First he had to… jump over the barrels!

Now Steven wasn't that athletic, he couldn't jump and spin like Pearl could have, but he had to try. So he backed up a bit, to get a running start, before charging down the hallway and leaping… not high enough. His feet getting caught up on a barrel, sending him stumbling to the ground. And stumbling forward, toward the next rolling barrel.

"Oh no!" Steven yelled out, cupping his hands over his Gem and hoping it would do something. It didn't, and as Steven's momentum sent him closer to the barrel. Realizing there was nothing he could do, he just dove forward and hoped.

He didn't hit the barrel, that was good at least. But he did impact the floor, and go rolling forward until he did impact something. He opened his eyes, he had hit one of the stairs at the other end of the room, and something was rumbling toward him.

Steven threw his arms up, expecting to be hit, but no hit ever came. Instead the barrel bounced off the stair above him, flew over him, and landed away from him. Steven breathed a sigh of relief, trying to remember what came next in the game. "The barrels are bouncing down the blocks… and I need to climb them by..."

His finger was tapping out on its own, tapping the rhythm of the barrels. "That's it! I need to time them so the barrels bounce over me!"

"Alright… I can do this," he said to himself, listening again to another barrel, and another, bouncing over him. Committing the rhythm of the barrels to memory.

Finally feeling like he got it down pat, he got up off the floor, climbed up the giant stair, and rushed to huddle against the next stair before another barrel could arrive. And then he repeated the process again, and he repeated it again, until he had finally climbed to the top of the stairs.

"I made it. Now next was..." Steven realized he was feeling… hot. Hotter than he should be inside a sand castle. The reason he realized just looking ahead, a pit of what looked like bubbling sand, with a series of barrels floating in it. "The lava barrels..."

Steven watched them for a time. They were small, it would require precise jumps to reach them and not overshoot. But they were also mostly stationary, merely bobbing up and down. He had the space, so he decided to give a few test jumps on solid ground. After thinking he had a good idea of how far he could, and couldn't, jump, he faced the sandy lava again. And taking a deep breath, and mentally apologizing to his father, Steven jumped.

And his feet met sandy hardness. One barrel down. The next barrels were off center, and different distances apart, but making the jump once, Steven was confident he could do it again. And so he jumped again, faster this time. And soon he was practically flying from barrel to barrel until his feet finally met solid ground larger, and less circular, than the barrels.

"Land," Steven sighed to himself, looking ahead and spying a staircase with light streaming down it. A way up, and if he was remembering right, a way to the "boss."

So Steven sprinted up the steps, taking two at a time in fact, until he came face to face with fresh air, sunlight, and a monster.

Well, not a monster. Well okay it was a monster, in the strictest sense of the term it was a Gem Monster. The semi-transparent, milky looking gem was set into a rather stereotypical golden crown, like a child's paper crown. It had no fancy cutting to it, rather it was simply a squared off, square shaped cut of gem. This wouldn't mean a Gem Monster, had the crown not been being worn by the near-spitting image of the lizard-man from the Mighty Lewis Bros cartridge. Easily a head taller than Greg, despite a slight hunching over, it tasted the air with its forked tongue and simply stared down at Steven, red cape blowing in the oceanside breeze.

"Steven!" a distant voice rang out, it was Greg, apparently from down below on the beach, "What's going on in there!?"

"Dad!" he yelled, waving an arm over the battlements that lined the top of the castle, "There's this giant lizard-man with a crown up here! I think it's actually a gem! And it looks like the monster from the game!"

There was some distant muttering, or at least regular talking, before Greg yelled up to Steven again, "That must be King Kroc! Since this is his castle! Listen, you never fight Kroc in the game! There's always some kind of self-destruct switch you need to hit instead!"

A self-destruct switch? Steven quickly did a visual sweep of the area. Kroc was still standing there, eyes locked on Steven, the pickaxe-replaced hand swinging back and forth at its side. Behind, there was an extension off the roof. If a self-destruct switch was anywhere, it was probably there. Unless it was a random brick, but the game hadn't seemed that cruel.

Sure of what he needed to do, Steven tried to summon his Spear once again. Cupping his hands in front of the pearl set in his forehead…

And nothing happened.

And King Kroc hunched lower on his legs, looking ready to spring at a moment's notice.

And then Kroc charged at Steven, swinging its pick-arm like…. A pick-ax. Steven dove to the side, once again rolling into a solid wall, this time one of the battlements. The battle was officially going poorly, and he couldn't summon his Spear!

He didn't need it, but he sure wished he could have one to throw right now. Just to give him room to get up and run, put some distance between himself and Kroc, maybe find the switch. But Steven's luck wasn't having it, as Kroc charged again, swinging downward, and only missing Steven because he had started crawling forward.

"Steven!" Greg called again from the beach below, "You need to wait for his big attack, and then get him to hit the walls!"

Steven barely heard it over the scrambling he was doing, Kroc chasing hotly behind him, and he almost yelled back that it would have been nice to know sooner. Instead, he opted for a simple "And when is that!?"

"It's a pattern! He'll do three normal attacks first!" Steven barely heard Greg yelling, dodging a swing of the pickaxe at the same time. The third attack. And Steven realized he wasn't being chased anymore either, Kroc had retreated to one of the battlements, eying Steven down again.

This time Steven knew what was coming. The extension was unguarded, Kroc was eying him, and any moment would likely charge. Greg had said to let Kroc hit the wall, but Steven was going to do one better.

Everything was quiet, like a cliche movie, and then Kroc charged Steven. And Steven charged the alcove. Kroc hit the wall, and Steven hit a floor-switch. Kroc slumped over the battlement, and Steven jumped on the switch.

"I got it!" Steven yelled down, before the castle started shaking violently. It was a self-destruct switch, that's right.

A self-destruct switch for a castle of sand. And like sand, the castle simply began to crumble away like dust. Steven watched Kroc go tumbling off the crumbling battlement, crashing with force into the ground below, its physical form poofing like the sand that was quickly falling all around the gem.

"Steven! Get down from there!" he just barely could hear Greg calling from below. And then Steven lost his footing, the switch was crumbling now too.

He stumbled for a moment, before turning and diving toward the ocean the castle was partly perched over. He fell for longer than he thought he would, the castle was actually rather high, and then he hit the water. And swam back to the surface with a gasping breath.

"Steven!" he heard his father yelling as he waded into the ocean while Steven swam toward him, "Steven that was reckless and dangerous and… I'm just glad you weren't hurt." Greg went in for a tight hug, but Steven ran right past him, digging in the sand until he pulled out the gem responsible for all of this.

"Dad, can you go grab something to store this in?" he asked calmly, almost tiredly. He'd seen the Crystal Gems put Monsters in bubbles, so he figured a container of some sort might work just fine.

"Uh, sure thing, Steven," Greg replied, running into the beach house and returning with a tupperware container, which Steven promptly dropped the Gem in before putting on the lid.

"So that little thing caused all of this, huh?" Greg asked, looking at the piles of sand that were left behind from the Castle, "What was it even doing in that old Grintendo anyway?"

Steven had a guess. A Crystal Gem must have put it there. But before he could say anything, the beach was lit up by the activating Warp Pad. Rose, Amethyst, and Garnet had returned. Carrying a chunk of red metal with them. Steven was going to have a tough time explaining this.

.

* * *

.

_Hey everyone I finally got this bad boy done. So this was meant to go up like… 2 weeks ago but I dropped the ball hard. Spent like 3 weeks writing everything up to the castle showing up, then regurgitated the other half of the story in like a week, and did all the edits in a day. Though hey, beats the first chapter where edits took like a week._

_Anyway as for the chapter itself. This one was something of a passion project for me as a fan of video games. I was originally planning this concept for the third chapter of my defunct Blueswap fic, again taking the place of Laser Light Cannon. Crammed full of references too, like our "Villain" King Kroc. He's like… Bowser-meets-K Rool-meets-a Lizalfos, who might I mention, is based on the Ulexite Gem. It was originally a Spinel, but after hearing about "TV Rock" I had to make the switch. There's also a Tokusatsu reference slipped in there at one point for good measure._

_(Edit the next morning: Hi I forgot to mention that this also was inspired by the Greg Universe comic, the one about The Perils of Pweepwee. Expect to see more comics work their way into this story in the future.)_

_Anyway as for chronology, like I said, this is taking the spot of Laser Light Cannon, and for good reason. Like I said in the comments on AO3, some events will be changing due to Rose's existence. This being one of them. You don't need Steven to save the day when Rose knows where the cannon is, and how to fire is._

_Anyway I think that's about it for this chapter. So let's sign off in the usual way. Next time, Steven learns of a new Pearl Power, and finally gets to go on his first mission!_


End file.
